Chapter 14

Between self-pleasuring, Tucker read everything he could find on the subject of homosexuality: the sensual and erotic, the historical, the psychological, the scientific, the religious. There was no doubt he was “gay.” That word came up once in a while, though he preferred “homosexual,” which sounded more scientific, like a biological genus or anthropological class. Whatever one called it, Tucker was one, whether he wanted to be or not, whether God liked it or not, whether 1950s doctors thought it was natural or an illness, whether or not it was against the law. Fuck!Just when he had finally been accepted by his peers, there was something else to make him not fit in. Once again, something that felt normal, even ever-so-briefly, Tucker learned through reading, would most likely make him an outcast again.